Habitat conservation falters with economy

Government programs and agencies wither; non-profits scratch for money

Scott Ferguson of The Conservation Fund explorers a recently acquired parcel of land near Beauty Mountain in North County. The purchase was made with money from a federal conservation program that has since expired.
— John Gastaldo

Scott Ferguson of The Conservation Fund explorers a recently acquired parcel of land near Beauty Mountain in North County. The purchase was made with money from a federal conservation program that has since expired.
— John Gastaldo

Land conservation groups announced a binational plan seven years ago that they called Las Californias — an attempt to link critical habitats in Southern California and Baja California so they weren’t severed by development.

The vision remains, but The Nature Conservancy has completed just one major land purchase on the U.S. side since 2004 and the project is nowhere as advanced today as proponents hoped.

Across the region and across the country, conservation blueprints have been undermined by shrinking donations, collapsing government programs and cost-cutting agencies that historically have taken over long-term care of conserved lands.

However, the slowed pace of development since 2008 means builders aren’t as interested in virgin landscapes as they once were. And San Diego County maintains an edge over other areas because the regional association of governments has been funding habitat deals through the $14 billion TransNet road-building program approved by voters in 2004.

The net effect for conservationists has been incremental advances coupled with setbacks and uncertainty about how to keep prime parcels from being turned into homes, wind farms or other projects that fragment habitat and decrease its ecological value.

“We are definitely getting to the bottom of the tank for funding,” said Scott Ferguson, Southern California director for The Conservation Fund, a national nonprofit group. “It’s like when your car’s gas gauge starts dinging, there is still a little gas in your tank and you are trying to make it using what’s left.”

When the stock market crashed in 2008, many land trusts had projects in the pipeline and bond money to ease the fall. That allowed some to snap up parcels at bargain prices, but they eventually started to reel from the effects of the financial crisis combined with declining trends in state and federal investments that predate the unstable economy.

Take Ferguson’s group, which in September announced a 400-acre purchase in North County using $1.2 million from the Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act. That program, which generated tens of millions of dollars to conserve landscapes in the West over the past decade, has expired. The North County deal was among the last authorized transactions.

Another major federal program — the Land and Water Conservation Fund — is on uncertain footing. Started in 1965, it was designed to take a portion of revenue from offshore oil and gas develop and invest the money in onshore habitat.

The Obama administration nearly doubled annual spending by the fund between 2008 and 2010, when it topped $300 million. But payouts decreased by a third in 2011 and could reach historic lows for 2012 under a proposal being considered by a cost-conscious Congress, including some members who think the federal government already has too much land.

Erratic funding hampers land deals, which often take years because they involve complex agreements between nonprofit groups, government agencies and private property owners. If funds don’t come through as expected, landowners move on, said Alan Rowsome, director of conservation funding for The Wilderness Society in Washington, D.C. “You may never have that opportunity again,” he said.

State funding also follows a seesaw pattern. California’s Wildlife Conservation Board, a major source of land acquisition funds, averaged spending about $220 million a year during the early 2000s. The level has shrunk to an average of $85 million annually since 2006.

John Donnelly, executive director of the conservation board, figures the agency will be able to maintain its current pace for at least four years, but it’s not clear when or if another statewide bond measure will pass to keep money flowing for the long term.

“It’s been five years since the last major bond act was passed,” he said. “Our funding is dwindling.”

The situation is more severe at state land agencies, which historically have been willing to adopt or purchase habitat lands. Conservationists say they’re pulling back in the face of unprecedented budget cuts that have forced the state to plan closures of 70 California parks.

“State government is kind of leery about taking on additional lands at the same time they can’t operate those that they currently hold,” said David Van Cleve at The Nature Conservancy in San Diego.

In 2004, the conservancy and its partners launched the Las Californias Binational Conservation Initiative. It was designed to make sure that creatures such as mountain lions and bighorn sheep could move across the rapidly developing border region. It had high-powered supporters, including the largest conservation group in Mexico.

Today, momentum has slowed. “I’d love to give you a great success story,” Van Cleve said. But, “it’s probably not as robust as anybody would prefer.”

He cited many factors, from skittish donors to wary agencies, and said there are signs of progress. For instance, the conservancy is working in Mexico City to promote conservation of border lands and the initiative recently was awarded money from Wildlife Conservation Board to help pay for 563 acres near Jamul.

“We haven’t stopped just because the money has slowed down,” Van Cleve said.

Funding opportunities would expand under a plan by the San Diego Association of Governments to distribute roughly $160 million from a TransNet habitat conservation account over the next 37 years. The money is part of a larger environmental mitigation packaged SANDAG used to secure support from conservationists.

“It will mean acceleration of land acquisition despite the economy that we are in,” said Mike Kelly, board president of the San Diego Conservation Resources Network. “Without the TransNet funding, there would be very little land acquisition going on.”

SANDAG is developing a strategy for distributing the money, but executive director Gary Gallegos said it won’t be meted out until the agency sews up permits for various road projects such as expanding Interstate 5.

Gallegos downplayed the money’s potential to buoy conservationists. “I imagine their expectations are probably way greater than our capacity,” he said.